I was about 18 when I was told that you had sexually abused both my mother and my aunt for years, messing up their childhoods and their lives beyond. Before that day you were my grandad who wore braces and always smelled of soap, who grew fruit and vegetables and could identify birds by their song. You made bread and polished shoes, and made things from wood, loved classical music and bowling.

After I found out, I thought that if Mum and my aunt could forgive you then I had no right to do anything but carry on as before. I would just be more guarded against your hugs and kisses. I've done that for 20 years, and it has been a really big effort. Especially as the consequences of your actions have become more and more obvious to me as I've grown older.

In the last few years you suffered stroke after stroke, small ones, but enough to slowly render you completely helpless, tube-fed and bed-ridden in a nursing home after becoming too much for your loyal (and knowing) wife to care for.

In your horrible vulnerability, what you did has floated to the surface for me so that it has overshadowed the good I once saw in you. I don't know whether you paid for what you did to your daughters. Lately, I wondered if you were afraid to die because of what you did and the price you might pay. Then I thought you were already paying just having to exist like that, immobilised in bed, in a small stinking room, ghoulish people howling and yelling all around you, day and night.

Since you died on Monday, I have come to realise that unlike my other grandparents who will live on for generations to come in the memories of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, you will not. I'm afraid I will not reminisce fondly about you with my son.

I loved you once, but now I am glad you are gone. It's a relief not to have to pretend any more. Sorry, Grandad.